27 May 2009

He looked at the outside temperature gauge, looked away, then looked back at it again. Was this for real? No, no, something must be wrong. He hit it a few times just to check if it was correct.

53 degrees, it read.

"That can't be normal", he thought to himself, "we're still just in May". The traffic infront of him moved another meter, so he let his car crawl a little further down the highway.

It had started off as a regular day; the alarm clock rang at 6:30am with it's annoying metallic buzz, waking up Ahmed from his deep slumber. "Dammit," he said, "another routine crappy work day", as the rays of the sun shined through the window onto his face. As he got up, changed, and left for work, he felt a little hotter than usual, but thought nothing of it.

At the office, all telecommunication systems were down, cutting down all possibilities of doing anything useful. No phone landlines, no internet, and difficulty getting a mobile phone signal (and even then, there was too much static on the line to actually be able to communicate). Something was definitely going on today; even the office AC which was on full blast seemed like it wasn't able to keep up with the massive heat surge coming in through the office windows.

He looked outside his window to the Bahrain World Trade Center; the fans weren't spinning at all. An initiative by the authorities to help cool down Bahrain whenever the temperature rises above 40 degrees, the fans would automatically start, and spin faster relative to the air temperature. "That's weird", he thought to himself, "it feels quite a bit hotter than 40 degrees.."

His boss asked him to pay a visit to their telecom operator, who they couldn't get a hold of because all systems were down, so off Ahmed went to his car and drove away. The roads were packed; people had their windows down, blasting their horns waiting for others to move, screaming out of their windows at each other. It seems their car air conditioning just wasn't keeping them cool.

He looked at the outside temperature gauge, looked away, then looked back at it again. Was this for real? No, no, something must be wrong. He hit it a few times just to check if it was correct.

53 degrees, it read.

By now the traffic jam and heat was starting to get to people; the guy in the car infront of him, a middle-aged man who was shouting to the driver in the next car to move out of the way, lost it all of a sudden and got out to pick a fight. The two drivers shouted and argued, as other drivers left their vehicles to see what was going on. The scene got physical, as the heat wave caused everyone's blood to boil, and what started off as two angry drivers started to turn into a mini-mob, running around from car to car opening the doors and beating up the drivers.

Ahmed was shocked; as they came closer to his car, he decided the best option was to get out and run, and he did. As the size of the mob increased, they jumped on his car and broke the windows, but he didn't look back to see what was going on. He ran through the traffic-filled streets, and in every group of vehicles he could see similar zombie-like mobs starting to grow. Weirdly enough each of these zombie like creatures was starting to develop a pink glow to their skin.

This was disturbing. Something was definitely not normal ("No shi#!" - A reader), and as Ahmed ran from the chaos that was starting to form, he could feel the sweat dripping down his forehead like an open tap. The heat was getting to him, and he looked up at the sky to see the sun shining in a scary orange yellow glow. The sky didn't look normal, more like it was burning, and Ahmed figured the temperature was rising even further.

He wondered if there was anyone who could do anything about this, and he remembered the only people who were wise enough to solve any problem; the MP's ('How the hell are the MP's supposed to solve anything!? - Another Reader). He stopped a fake-London-taxi and asked the driver to take him over to the MP meeting hall. He got there, and waited as the 40 MP's made their entrance.

He stood in the middle of the hall, and pleaded to them;

"Oh great MP's, we have a situation on our hands. The temperature of Bahrain is rising. Just an hour ago, I noticed the temperature at 53 degrees in my car, and it only seems to have gone up since then. This heat is causing damage to our infrastructure, causing problems to our telecom systems that cannot handle these temperatures, and affecting our people, turning them into zombie-like mobs who cannot think. I plea with you to solve this problem"

One of the MP's stood up and said; "We already know the reason for the problem. It is because of the 1, 2 and 3 star hotels serving alcohol."

"What!?" Ahmed said, "How the hell does that contribute to temperature change?!"

"Oh unwise one," the MP continued, "God does not like these petty hotels serving the forbidden drink, therefore he has condemned us to a sample of hell"

Ahmed: "Umm, and what about the 4 and 5 star hotels then?"

MP: "You ask too many questions! Don't question the wisdom of the mighty MP's! We also need to make sure the pork is banned, otherwise our land will be cursed for ever! And we need to make sure that cinemas and parties should be closed down, as well as the internet, because it is all evil"

Ahmed felt a bit of frustration and decided he should leave before his nerves give and he ends up attacking the MP's violently. He walked out into the streets only to see the situation escalated; people blasting their horns, others giving into road rage and crashing into each other, the burning heat rays scorching trees and plants everywhere, people screaming and shouting, mobs destroying cars and setting fire to anything they can...

It was getting to an extreme, and the temperatures were getting hot enough to cause anyone to black out, so Ahmed decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. He needed immunity against this heat, and so ran off to Aloo Basheer and ordered 200 fils worth of Aloo and 100 fils nikhi (and a red Crush) with a ton of filfil. After quickly devouring the hot spices, the temperatures (now hitting 60 degrees) were no match for him.

He ran through the streets, mobs and fires to look for a solution, and he finally found the cause of the problem:

Apparently, one of the large truck carrying tons of pigs had crashed and threw the pigs all over the highway, right infront of the World Trade Center. All the people who came in contract with the same highway managed to get Swine Flu, turned into pig-zombies and went nuts, destroying and burning everything, including the power supply to the fans of the World Trade Center (explaining the rising temperatures). He obviously didn't get the flu because of his supernatural immunity, developed through years and years of eating Aloo Basheer.

Ahmed thought quickly, and since the big fans of the World Trade Center weren't working, he decided the only way this the weather could be brought back to normal is through using lots of other, smaller fans. He called his good friends, Ali Bahar and El Ekhwa, and asked them to perform a small concert infront of the corniche immediately, which they did. All of a sudden, all of their fans from Isa Town came out and that slowly caused the temperatures in Bahrain to cool down to normal levels, bringing back the telecommunication network, giving the police a chance to remove the pigs from the highway and dispose of them into the sea, and turning all the pink-zombie-mobs back into normal people.

Phew. Ahmed had actually saved the day, and maintenance worked on the World Trade Center fans to make sure they wouldn't break down in such a drastic situation again. With no one to thank him for his great deed, he went back to the office, and was shouted at by his boss: "Where the hell were you, it doesn't take 3 hours to go to the telecom and back. And go get yourself washed up, you're sweating like a pig!"

22 May 2009

The authorities in Bahrain have a bit of a problem with road planning; one plain example of their utter failure to be able to complete a project with any form of efficiency is the Sitra Causeway. If you don't know Bahrain, Sitra is a little island just off the mainland (also an island), and they are both connected via Sitra Causeway. Two lanes forward, two lanes back.

Increases in the volume of traffic over the past 10 years have made Sitra Causway about as useful as smelly used underwear (which really isn't very useful unless you're pretty creative about what you do with it). A strip of road a little over 3km long takes a good 30 minutes to cross; that's the equivalent of driving at approximately 4.5km an hour. Average human walking speed is closer to 6km/hr, so if you drove across and I walked across, I would literally get there before you.

ANYWAY.

This was before the Ministry of Road Destruction decided to do anything about it; they put a plan where they figured, 2 lanes is obviously not enough, so let's have 3 (with a department that supposedly plans things you would have expected them to increase it to 4 or 5 so that they wouldn't need to do another expansion over the next few years, but hey that's them for you). This meant completely redoing the causeway, and digging up half of the land on the Manama side of things to make for (supposedly) better flowing traffic as you exit. Supposedly a job that in my point of view should take a good 6-12 months at a maximum, it has been ongoing since mid-2007, and from the speed at which they're doing things is nowhere near completion anytime within the next 2 years. The total mess they've made has managed to slow traffic down even more, and now it sometimes takes up to an hour to cross the causeway (which now means that if you get in your car and drive across, and I set a tiny puppy to cross with 3 broken legs, he would probably get to the end before you).

ANYWAY.

I've vented a bit and sort of steered off the topic of this post; God does not hit with a stick is the literal translation of the Arabic saying الله ما يطق بعصى which means that if you do something bad, God won't come back and beat you with a stick, but you will be punished somehow. Sort of like karma.

Thursday night, me and Nibz were driving back to Manama from Riffa and made the stupid mistake of deciding to take the Sitra Causeway route. Now there are two lanes going back, but there is a third emergency lane where anyone who has broken down can stop. People who don't enjoy the long wait sometimes think it is their right to use this as an actual driving lane and bypass everyone else waiting. Jerkoffs.

As we got halfway through the causeway (about half an hour later), we heard shouting from about two cars behind; a quick look in the rear view mirror told the story. Some young dude, being the jerkoff that he is, decided he wants to overtake everyone else via emergency lane, and apparently an old guy in a beat-up pickup felt this was a little disrespectful and swerved a little to block his path. Mr. Jerkoff got a little annoyed at this, and started shouting at the old man from his window, who didn't really care to listen. The dude stepped out of the car and went all the way around to the old man's door, opened it and started screaming about how the old guy had no right to do that and how he was going to "show him who he was". After a minute of fuming and screaming and almost punching the old guy, jerkoff went back to his car and burnt rubber as he overtook the old man (scratching his side mirror along the way).

We had a bit of a laugh about this as we drove along, sort of annoyed that a jackoff like that was allowed to do whatever he wanted. Drove along the causeway for another half hour, and we could see the old man 2 cars behind us, driving along following all the rules.

Almost at the end of the bridge, there was a bit of a bottle-neck. Seems a car had broken down, and funnily enough it was our old friend Mr. Jerkoff; this gave us a huge laugh and we just hoped the old man would come by and see this. Jerkoff managed to start his car, however, and drove a few meters then stopped as his engine failed one more time. As we overtook him we could see the look of frustration in his eye as he tried to start his car again, checking his rear-view every few seconds just to make sure the old dude doesn't pass him.

But he did! We had the biggest laugh and totally cracked up watching the old man cross, give jerkoff a quick nonchalant look and drive across with the biggest grin on his face. That was lovely. Just lovely.

Moral of the story? If you're going to be screaming at old people you try to overtake on the highway, make sure you get your engine serviced first.

20 May 2009

I really think dying is a good concept. When you have idiots on the planet, they usually end up meeting other idiots and getting married, giving birth to more idiots, and sooner or later taking over the planet. It's a good thing death exists, which helps clear up the gene pool from dumasses who I believe my planet is better off without. We have too many idiots already and they get in the way of smart people like us.

A 26-year-old Phoenix man accidentally killed himself early Sunday while explaining gun safety to two Sierra Vista residents.

Doh! Hahahaha, gun safety and he manages to kill himself, beautiful! But what's even funnier to note is the way in which it happened;

Samuel Benally Jr. was at an apartment on West Tacoma Street when he said guns should be kept unloaded because people could point them at their heads, said Sierra Vista police Sgt. Brett Mitchell.

Wahahahahahahhahaa, do you see where this is going??? Seriously...

Benally then demonstrated by putting his own 9mm Ruger, which he believed to be unloaded, to his head and firing it, Mitchell said.

I know it's sad to note that Mr. Dumass died here and it's a bit cynical of me to be laughing at it, but i've had a really bad week and in this situation it's always fun to laugh at other people's misfortune. If I was stupid enough to do something like this, I deserve, no actually I would welcome you to laugh and make fun of me, if I could get past that large bullet hole in my head.

15 May 2009

Food is a problem. Running around every day from morning to night finishing work, tasks, going to events, etc, makes the fact that you have to 'eat' a little bit of a nuisance, rather than an activity you end up enjoying. Food consists of lots of fast food and take out, and some fancy restaurants every now and then. Nothing wrong with that, except that all food seems to lose it's taste after a while.

What to eat today? Burgers? Nah, sick of it. Steak? Nope, sick of that too. Pizza? Pasta? Grills? Salads? No no no, sick of it all. All food is boring, I lost my appetite.

Sometimes you just want a little bit of an old fashioned meal to fix your system; you know, stuff that you were grew up with, home cooked food, that sort of thing.So Thursday night, after a long rushed week of non-stop action and work, we decided to go out for breakfast the next day to a gahwa (restaurant/coffee shop) we used to go to. It's been a while since we've been down there, but they serve good, traditional early morning food:

Walkin' down Manama Souq on a Friday morning heading over to Al Maseela (if you're looking for it, it's in an alleyway right opposite Standard Chartered Bank, near Bab Al Bahrain)

It's nice and sunny (well, hot), so a little bit of shade goes a long way. It's not a huge place, but the food is pretty damn good.

We give the waiter our (long) order and he gives us a big OKAY. Yup, it shouldn't be long till our food gets here... Yummy...

Waiting...

It was taking a while so we decided to take a few photos to distract from our hunger. Here's how we make traditional bread in Bahrain; a big fire furnace, stick the dough to the side. Yum... Now where is that damn food..

1 May 2009

What have we come to? Seriously, what has happened to our little island?

I've witnessed hotels get put out of business due to some stupid rules placed overnight by total blockheads at one of our ministries. I've seen the ridiculousness from our MP's over everything from plastic models in store windows, to trying to ban pork sales. I've even laughed at the concept of the authorities trying to block the internet (which can't be blocked).

I've seen a lot of rubbish come out of idiots in high places, who are so out of touch with reality that it's ridiculous. But what happened last night, was just.. Wow...

Preparations for the past month were ongoing for the biggest rock concert to ever hit Bahrain; Rage to the Extreme. Bands from all over the country, as well as bands from Saudi, UAE and Egypt would all come down for a full day of rock and metal music, and a competition to choose the top regional band. A full 10 hours of rock music, from 4pm-2am; definitely going to be a great one. The venue was booked, the bands arrived, the crowd arrived and everything was going PERFECTLY..

Until a few hours into the event, the CID decide to walk in and stop everything. Why?

Wait for it...

...

...

...

Over a t-shirt.

Yep. The police decided to come in and arrest a member of a band that just got up on stage, because he was wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon picture of the devil on it, and a quote saying "God's Busy, Can I Help You?"

And of course, during the course of arresting him, since everyone else was wearing black, the police assume the concert is a satanic ritual and decide to close it down, and tell everyone to wear their t-shirts inside out (to cover all 'satanic' images).

A t-shirt guys? You closed down a whole rock concert, one that brought people from all over the gulf to one place, to do something that hasn't been done before in this region, over a t-shirt? And I mean i'd be more inclined to consider this if it was actually offensive; this t-shirt was supposed to be funny, but I don't get how a bunch of uneducated idiot CID/Policemen who can't even speak English properly are supposed to understand this or how to even begin explaining it to them: "Helloooo, make funny joke, god busy, me can help you? No Broblem only making funny. Haha? NO? NO BITCHES DON'T YOU F**ING GET IT!?"

And then the authorities keep trying to portray Bahrain as 'the destination' for business, innovation, etc. Yeah, that's not happening. Not until we wipe out half of the people in charge and replace them with people who know the difference between the letter P and letter B.

My head hurts. I apologize to anyone and everyone who came to enjoy a day of music and was turned away. I especially apologize to those who came all the way from UAE, Saudi and Egypt. I apologize on behalf of Bahrain; this country is sooo going down the drain guys. Time to abandon ship.